Nov 19, 2018

Episode 240: If Paris calls, should we hang up?

Mieke Eoyang joins us for aninterview about Third Way’s “To Catch a Hacker” report. We agree on the importance of what I call “attribution and retribution” as a way to improve cybersecurity. But we disagree on some of the details. Mieke reveals that this report is the first in a series that will hopefully address my concerns about a lack of detail and innovation in the report’s policy prescriptions.

Russia’s lawyers are almost as good as its hackers, to judge by a “letter” from the Russian government in the DNC’s hacking case against it. Matthew Heiman and I conclude that the DNC is going to face an uphill fight trying to overcome Russia’s sovereign immunity arguments.

It’s not cybersecurity, but it is cyberhygiene: Never do a global “find and replace” on a sensitive court filing without making sure the “replace” part actually worked. That seems to be the failure that disclosed to the world that the US has filed criminal charges against Julian Assange under seal. Maury Shenk comments.

“As an additional service to Alexa users, we promise to protect the privacy of anyone who murders you.” Okay, maybe that’s an unfair summary of Amazon’s position on whether to release Echo recordings in a double murder case. It’s not surprising that Amazon wants a court order before handing over the recordings, or that it got one, or that it seems to have complied promptly. The real news, I argue, would be if the company had handled the matter any other way.

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